METHODOLOGY OF HIGHER AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION: POLYPARADIGMAL APPROACH

The authors analyze the current state and prospects of development of the agricultural sector, consider the role of higher agricultural education in the innovative development of the agricultural sector, determine the need to improve the theory and practice of higher agricultural education, including the study of its methodological foundations. The study aims at analyzing the possibilities of using a polyparadigmal approach as the basis of the methodology of modern higher agricultural education. The authors overview the transformation process of the educational paradigm in the vocational education system in recent decades;
consider the core of cognitive, technocratic, and humanistic educational paradigms; and evaluate the possibilities of combining them within the framework of a polyparadigmal approach to provide grounds for the theory and practice of higher agricultural education. The authors prove the expediency of applying the ideas of systemic, synergetic, personality-oriented, competency-based, and design-targeted approaches within the framework of a polyparadigmal approach. The implementation of a polyparadigmal approach in the development of pedagogical systems in higher agricultural education provides opportunities to meet the requirements of modern society for the training of qualitatively new specialists: highly qualifi ed, competent, competitive, cultural, proactive, creative, entrepreneurial, communicative, capable and willing to perform their professional functions in a highly effi cient manner, socially mobile, easily adaptable to changes and quickly mastering new technology of modern high-tech agricultural production.